THE First Edition of "Practical Taxidermy" having now run through the
press with, I venture to hope, some profit to students of the art, if
I may judge from the many hundreds Of letters I have from time to time
received the publishers have invited me to revise such parts of the
work as may be expedient, and also to add many technical methods of
modelling animals an artistic manner.

I do this the more readily because of the narrow way in which most
professional Taxidermists bolster up their art in a secret and
entirely unnecessary manner unnecessary because amateur can, but by
the severest application, possibly compete with the experience of the
technical or professional worker. No pictorial artist ever pretends he
has a special brush or colours with which he can paint landscapes or
sea pieces at will; he knows that only thorough mastery of the
technicalities of his art supplemented by wide experience and close
application enables him to succeed as he does, and to delight people
who, seeing his facility of handling, may imagine that picture
painting is very easy and could be readily acquired perhaps from
books. So it is with the Taxidermist. Those, therefore, who procure
this book, thinking to do all attempted to be explained therein
without long study and without a knowledge of anatomy, form,
arrangement, and colour, may put it on one side as useless. These
pages are merely an introduction to a delightful art, which must be
wooed with patient determination and loving pains until technical
skill invests it with beauty.

If I can be of any assistance to my readers, I invite them to write to
me if at any time they are puzzled or temporarily disheartened; merely
asking them to remember:

(1) That, not being in business, I cannot of course answer purely
business communications; and (2) Not being a man of infinite leisure,
it must also be remembered that a properly directed envelope for
return to the inquirer is of consequence when minutes are precious.
Unlike the Prime Minister, I do not like post cards, and never answer
them if from unknown correspondents.

I may here mention that this edition is not only considerably
enlarged, but has several woodcuts and four plates added, three of
which latter have been engraved from photographs specially taken for
this work.

I say now, in conclusion, work hard, study hard, and look to good
modellers and painters and not to bird stuffers for conceptions of
form, arrangement, and colour, and in the end, believe me, you will
achieve a better success than attends the labours of those who follow
in the old paths of careless or inartistic Taxidermy.

MONTAGU BROWNE.

LEICESTER.

PRACTICAL TAXIDERMY.

CHAPTER I.

THE RISE AND PROGRESS of TAXIDERMY.

TAXIDERMY, which is derived from two Greek words, a literal
translation of which would signify the "arrangement of skins," appears
to have been practised in a limited degree ages ago, for may we not
say without doubt that the first taxidermists were the ancient
Egyptians, who, despite the fact that they seldom or never appear to
have removed the skin as a whole, as in our modern methods, yet,
taking into consideration the excellent manner in which they preserved
their human or other bodies for thousands of years by the aid of
injections, spices, essential oils, or what not, they may, I think, be
fairly placed in the front rank as the first taxidermists the world
has known... Continue reading book >>